My Impossible mission

Colour TV is like a woman. I may not understand it, but I still enjoy it.

 

What a fun thread, I can't believe I missed it for so long. I liked it so much I just had to stick my oar in. After all, nobody has even mentioned oars so far!. Oar you could use a canoe and paddle it yourself, the traditional way, rather than Paul's earlier proposals which had to have violated some human rights somewhere though perhaps not in the US.

D.I.M.I.1, I sense you are perhaps looking for original as well as practical ideas. You really are supposed to generate those yourself you know, but here's one that really works. You will need a trained labrador retriever dog, a supply of dog treats, a long leash and a good throwing arm. Oops, also a boat, preferably a small one. It actually works, I have tried it, with and without the boat; you don't really need the boat but it's faster and the treats get soggy unless you have someone on shore to wave them around like I did, also you stay drier. Steering method is self-evident.

This concept also worked with skis, a small hill and some snow, but you did specify a boat.

Theoretically any breed of dog will do but the labrador is the greediest one that is big enough to provide serious motive power, and still dumb enough to do it. I don't know if other breeds will work, but I was told it doesn't work with a poodle, apparently too smart to bother. Some idiot must have actually tried it: imagine!

 

Well I came up with a theory that proves the laws of physics as well as time don't exist.

 

I hate to be the complete clueless one but can anyone put what HHO is in the most simple terms a 17 year old high school student with little knowledge in nautical engineering can understand?

Also, the only aspects about the battery that I'm concerned with is the energy density, size, the current, and the amount of time it can be used and how long it takes to recharge them (ratio: current/Time)

It's more so whether the amount of energy required to power a boat is sufficient for a electrical power source like a battery can replace the effectiveness of a gas tank.

Also, the dog idea Ancient kayaker will probably bring down the wrath of PETA on me. To the poster who mentioned using the flow of a river to move the boat, this project's focus is on moderately sized yachts, I've been misusing the term commercial way too long. Yachts being trawlers used to net fish, tour boats, privately owned mid-sized boats, etc.

Also, if all of you are so fixated on the laws of physics please separate the related information to the topic from the debate, because it's kind of difficult to find information in this thread. Sorry for being a little stuck up, but it's a little confusing to sift through this much information.
-DIM
Separate it like this if you like:
_____________________________________

The only constant in the universe is existence, time is intangible and therefore not subject to multi-directional flow, variation. If something isn't subject to variation it cannot exist.
_________________________________

-the philosopher and theorist DIM

 

QUOTE=marshmat;307760]...... would give us roughly 7.6E16 joules, ie. 2.1E7 megawatt-hours.
Or, to put it in a more intuitive form: The mass-energy content of a single litre of #2 diesel is enough to power the entire electrical grid of Peru for a whole year.[/QUOTE]

I really WANT that one in my old VWPassat........

(promise to go easy on the clutch...)

 

I will try: Hydrogen, symbol H, latin hydrogenium is a chemical element. It is by far the most frequent element in the entire universe. About 93% of all atoms are H.
H, or chemically H², does not exist in the pure form (or nearly not), but is "bound" to other atoms. Most frequent to O = Oxygen, forming water. Symbol H²O
On industrial scale H is produced by "steam reforming" of hydrocarbon or "partial oxidation" of natural gas.
The most common way on lower scale to produce H is the electrolysis:

Imagine in this example shown, there is a current (electrical one) going from the left Kathode to the right Anode. The Tank is full of water. On it´s way through the water, the current is "cracking" the H²O into Hydrogen and Oxygen.
Thats all.

The problems in using that stuff are multiple. First fact is, that you cannot produce enough H within reasonable time and energy input on board a boat. Second prob. you cannot store the gas safely. Next is the apparatus to make a sensible use of it is not available off the shelf (or rather not a bargain). And finally (just to shorten the story), you put at least three times, probably more, the energy in, than you can use to propel the boat.
This topic was handled in all seriousness about twenty times or more here, and the industry is experimenting with H gas since 1787 when Cavendish and de Lavoisier discovered the existence of H.
Until today there is not a single one NOT ONE, sensible, affordable and practical application on the market! All clear?

next:

The last statement about Hydrogen above is more or less valid in this case too.
Though to enjoy a day fishing, or some afternoon with the kids on a boat, is a easy going way of boating and commonly not racing. In that case a electric outboard connected to a car or truck battery is a sensible, clean and affordable solution. Efficient in terms of energy input / output it is not, it´s a nonsense. But on such a low scale that does´nt matter.
When the boat gets larger or faster (usually both) EVERY sort of electric propulsion is, at present time, the sheer idioty! period

Of course there are commercial applications where the losses are not a hinderance, and sure there are different solutions seeming quite attractive.
When calculated in all businesslike manner, the result is negative! Electric propulsion for boats does NOT EXIST!

So easy is colour TV.


Regards
Richard

 

Richard, I was with you until the very end when I discovered that my nice shiny new trolling motor for propelling my new boat doesn't exist. Dang! What did I spend the money on?

 

Above comments meant in good spirit. Just some things that might have been overlooked.\

Porta

 

Hmm Terry, that is a pretty good question! You got me......

or, wait........

did I say somewhere:

??


Porta

which ones for example?

You call a Zeppelin "sensible, affordable and practical application" ? And did we talk propulsion here or balloons?


Drag boats? Was the topic yacht or racer? And where is a raceboat energy efficient?


Torpedo compared with yachts? Did´nt I say there are niches?


There are (as I mentioned above) nearly no such installations in the commercial field! You do´nt find a single one Container vessel, bulker or tanker with a Diesel El. propulsion, for good reasons.
A cruise liner is a completely different world! You have a hotel load on these vessels, usually as high or higher than the propulsion demand.
Navy is again a completely different world, no need to comment on that again.

When you read my post above you may notice that there was another statement "businesslike calculation" right?
Do that and contradict then!

Regards
Richard

 

Guys,
I losing you like a space shuttle breaking up in the stratosphere (not to be insensitive to the astronauts that have died on the return to home.)
I think the balloon idea does have some merit, if that's what Richard was saying, if [I could harness the lift of a helium balloon or fill the outriggers of a catamaran to be hollow to contain helium I could reduce the drag given by any weight, hopefully enough to reduce power consumption.] idea claimed by Daniel I. Mathews, sorry its for patent rights or at least a claim to the idea, but I figured since you guys gave me the idea I should tell you.
I'm serious, the helium will reduce friction from the water enough to allow for a weaker engine to propel something as fast as a normal engine fueled by natural gas.
Sorry for the late intro.
-Daniel

 

Quick question to all, how do we get from discussing HHO to colour TV?

 

One cubic metre of helium, at sea level pressure and temperature, will lift approximately a 1.02 kg mass.

Fill the outer hulls of a 60' racing trimaran with helium gas, and the net effect on the boat's performance will be comparable to removing five or six cases of beer from the galley. Provided, that is, you can keep the helium contained- not an easy thing to do.

 

I did know we were kidding, but now it´s getting mad and I do´nt like to waste my time with madness.

DIM1 finish school, then come back.........................

 

Sooooo.......

What you need is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q4UENGN_Yk

to produce this; H2

Via electrolysis or something different?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q4UENGN_Yk

Then you can store it in a big bag ontop of the boat, compression reduces the efficiency in storage.... But a bigbag may be a bigbang, so anybody with quarter of a brain will understand the non-smoking argument, or quit smoking with a bang...

From there on, you can use a fuel cell, feed the Hydrogen and air into this in a mix, get out the electricity, charge some batteries/ run an electrical engine....

http://www.h-tec.com/html/web/industrial/english/index.asp

Piece of a cake....

(But I'll bey we'll get around to it.... eventually).

 

Not sensible yet, due to cost... Also it's a type of energy that's not too known to use/ harness. 2 parts of H2 and one part of O2; A bag of it in a closed plastic bag, dragged over an open fire is pretty fun though...

I've had my hands on a fuel cell package size of approx a stack of A4 paper (you know approx 250 pages), when this got H2 plus air, I believe it produced approx 3000W (max).... kind of a refillable battery. No moving parts, just the cooling/ air fan wich costs approx the same a PC cooling fan costs (come to think of it... the fan was probably from a scrapped computer...). Not too bad... (improved "film" technology for the internal "plates" will reduce the production cost to a more useful level, eventually).

Purity of gas was an essential problem so far. Can be reduced/ solved with filters.

Storage of H2; there is some tanks with some metal interior, that binds the H2, leaving the tank close to zero pressure, a cut in the tank will then reduce the risk of explosions, a fire, but not an explosion...

So, what we'll need is a clean way of producing H2, a safe way of storage, and we're in business, at least for some types of boats (cars)/ sizes of boats (cars).